Budget disbursement targets questionable

Analysts questioned on Friday the speed with which the 2020 budget will be disbursed despite approval from the Lower House on Thursday.

Tisco’s Economic Strategy Unit (ESU) said the 2020 budget’s disbursement rate is now being called into question as the Budget Bureau has set a target of 100 per cent for this year. “It would be very challenging to reach the 100 per cent target in order to support the economy,” they said.

The think tank said the target would be hard to achieve as records for the past five years show that the disbursement of the regular and investment budgets have clocked in at an average of 97 per cent and 72 per cent respectively.

They also pointed out that the target disbursement rate for regular and investment budgets at 32 and 35 per cent for the second quarter of 2020 is much higher than that of the 22 and 15 per cent average of the past five years.